


Thanks for Playing

by secondhandact



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Act Seven, Closure, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Post-Canon, Post-Sburb, thanks for playing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-06-02 01:34:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6545080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secondhandact/pseuds/secondhandact
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Game is over, and Dave, for one, is glad that it is.</p><p>John isn't so sure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thanks for Playing

The sky is blue and the clouds that drift across it are perfect wisps of cotton-candy white. There's grey shading the underside of them and that means it might rain later, and the carapaces that populate the town that was so lovingly constructed will have to be ushered inside, because some of them don't seem to understand that rain means _wet_ and wet means _take shelter so you don't get sick._ Not that they can get sick. Well, maybe they can get sick. You aren't really sure how they work. It isn't like you're an expert in carapace physiology, or whatever.

It's been six months, two weeks, three days, forty-two hours and fifteen minutes since John opened the door, and you're (finally) beginning to relax. Initially, you'd devoted at least six hours a day to focusing on Time and looking for any hint of the presence of some omnipotent godlike being fracturing it down the line. As the days passed and the world remained (almost suspiciously) intact, you'd let your devotion slip. Six hours became three, three hours became one, and now you've settled into a comfortable rhythm. Wake up, check to see if the hair on the back of your neck is standing on end, and then get on with your day. 

'Your day' is pretty lazy, most of the time. There's a training field on the outskirts of town that you and Dirk have put a lot of effort into—you've trapped a handful of dummies in a stable time-loop, so no amount of destruction can actually destroy them, and it's comforting, almost, to go through the steps of a strife against something that wouldn't swing back. Some days, Dirk joins you. Most days, it's just you and maybe a couple of the carapaces that fill the town you live in. Teaching them is more enjoyable than you'd like to admit, even if most of the time they can't tell which end of the wooden sword they're supposed to be holding. You know that the most vicious thing they'll face is one of the weird monster-things ( _lusii,_ your mind supplies, in the raspy voice of one particularly shouty troll) that roam the planet outside of the idyllic little town you're in, but still. It fills the time, and they look happy, and really, what else could you ask for? 

Sometimes, you head down to the garden that Jade and Roxy have planted and dig your hands in the dirt. Jade's really good at growing pumpkins bigger than your head, and she always appreciates when you can pull for Time around her little sprouts. It helps keep everyone fed, anyway, and you like contributing to the town. You could probably join Dirk and Jake on their hunting expeditions, too, but you've had enough blood and death to last you a lifetime.

Several lifetimes, in fact.

Today, though, you're not doing any of that. Today you're lying on your back in the park and watching the sky overhead and really, _really_ appreciating the fact that there's not shit else you have to do. You close your eyes.

A shadow passes over you and when you look up, John is sitting beside you, shoulders hunched. 

For a few minutes, you let silence hang over you, and when it becomes clear that he's not going to be the one to break it, you roll your eyes and shove yourself into a sitting position. "I was comfortable," you complain, shoving lightly at your best friend's shoulder. "And then you had to go and get in my fucking sun. I was definitely recharging there. Maybe I'm from Krypton and you're interrupting my healing process."

He doesn't interrupt your little diatribe, not right away, and you swallow, anxiety beginning to gather in a tangled knot in the center of your chest. 

"John?"

"Is that it?" He says finally. He's not looking at you; instead, he's twisting his fingers in the grass beside him, pulling idly at the blades, tearing at them.

The anxious knot becomes a flutter of confusion. "The fuck do you mean?"

"Is that it?" He repeats. His gaze lifts from the grass that he's destroying to meet yours, and there's worry in his eyes behind his glasses, above the shadows that Time has put on his face. "We opened the door, Jade gave us this pretty planet to live on. Lord English hasn't shown up and blown us all up, and there don't seem to be any new quests, or anything like that. So. Does that mean that's it?"

"You mean, do we have to do anything else?" Your brows knit together as you study him. He nods, and you exhale, sinking back down into the grass and lacing your fingers together under your skull. "Fuck, I hope not."

After a few moments, he speaks again, and this time, you can hear the frustration in his voice. "Then what the hell, man."

You open one eye, peering up at him. "What the hell do you mean, what the hell?"

He's not looking at you. He's staring out at the park you're both in, and the town beyond it. "I mean, what the hell are we supposed to do? Do we, I don't know, repopulate the human race? Are we supposed to be the guardians or something of this new universe and making sure nothing bad happens? Or do we just sit around on our butts and let everything be happy-happy for the rest of ever?"

"Probably the last part." You close your eyes again, expecting that to be the end of it. Minutes tick by and the sound of grass tearing hasn't stopped. It keeps on, eating at your senses until you sit back up and shove at his shoulder. "What is your _malfunction,_ fuckstick?"

He mumbles something, and you sigh. Trust John fucking Egbert to be a big dramatic crybaby about the end of the universe and the beginning of a new one.

"What?"

"I said, it seems like it was too easy."

That startles a burst of laughter from you. "Are you kidding? Did you play the same Game I did?"

He looks at you defensively. "Well, yeah, but-"

You cut him off. "There was nothing _easy_ about it. We were _kids,_ dude. Kids. It was your friggin' thirteenth birthday when all this shit started, remember?" You shake your head. "Whatever chill paradise we're in now, we've definitely earned it."

"Well, what about - you know, everything else?"

"What about it?"

"I mean, what about _people,_ " he bursts forth. "We've made this whole universe, and we're just supposed to, I don't know, sit here and fuck around instead of making sure it's okay?"

You shrug. Honestly, you haven't thought about it. You haven't _wanted_ to think about it. "That part ain't our job. The way I see it, our job was making sure the universe got built in the first place. The business of making sure it doesn't destroy itself is on somebody else." He's still scowling, so you press on. "We busted our _asses_ to get here. And it isn't like this place is empty."

That catches him off guard, and he narrows his eyes at you. "How do you know?"

You shrug again. "We lived in the Universe that Karkat and his pals created, right?"

"Yeah."

"So there's a planet out there somewhere that's got some species on it that we don't even know about and they're just going on about their happy business. Doing that thing that lifeforms do. You know. Living. I mean, that's what makes sense, isn't it?"

He snorts. "Dude, so little of our lives have made sense."

You nod. "Yeah, I know." Boy, do you ever know.

While he doesn't look exactly satisfied with what you've said, he seems ready to let the subject drop, and you lay back down. Today is for cloudgazing, and you didn't want to do shit else. After a few seconds, he lays down next to you.

"So that's it."

"Yeah." You didn't know how relieved you would be to say it aloud until you do, and it spreads through you until you can't do anything but grin. "Yeah, that's it."

Silence from the boy beside you. Then: "That one looks like a dong."

"Fuck you, _everything_ looks like a dong to you. Are we really sure I'm the gay one?"

"Fuck you!"

"All you're doing is reassuring me that you're definitely a huge fucking homo what with all this propositioning you're doing, Egbert, you might want to quit while you're ahead."

He rattles off some shitty-ass comeback, but you're not listening to him anymore. Your mouth is good at coming up with clapbacks without you having to even try, and you let your mind drift while delivering John Egbert the verbal beatdown of a lifetime.

In the trees and at the base of the decrepit Statue of Liberty, you know that Jade, Kanaya, Roxy and Rose are working on something big, something that involves the weird spiky orb that Kanaya protects with a fierceness and also with leaving this planet. Karkat figures into their plans, you know, but you don't think _he_ does, and because you really are enjoying the pleasant reprieve of no-obligations that post-sBurb has given you, you haven't asked anyone about anything. They'll probably want your help, too, and you'll probably give it, but you definitely aren't going to volunteer anything. There's a whole Universe beyond the horizon you're looking at, and between the eight of you you've definitely got the power to explore it. You can do whatever you want.

Right now, what you want involves watching the clouds and making jokes about your best friend and how gay he probably isn't.

Your name is Dave Strider, and you're very, very glad it's over.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted closure, so I wrote myself some closure.
> 
> I understand that this probably won't help other people as much as it helped me, but I like the open-endedness that Act 7 gave us. I didn't at first! But it does makes sense to me. Everyone who's still living is happy, and honestly, I think they deserve that. Don't you?
> 
> Homestuck has been a wild ride from start to finish, and I'm glad I got to be a part of it.
> 
> Thanks for reading.


End file.
